Cumans

The Cumans were a Turkic nomadic people who originated in the confederacy of Cumania in Central Asia. Related to the Pechenegs, many Cumans settled in Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey, and, after the Mongol invasion of 1237, they sought asylum in Hungary. Cuman immigrants were integrated into the elites of countries such as the Kievan Rus, the Golden Horde, the Second Bulgarian Empire, the Serbian Kingdom, the Kingdom of Hungary, Moldavia, the Kingdom of Georgia, the Byzantine Empire, the Empire of Nicaea, the Latin Empire, and Wallachia. The Cumans founded three successive Bulgarian dynasties (Asanids, Terterids, and Shishmanids) and the Basarabids of Wallachia. After the fall of Cumania, the Cumans were absorbed into certain families in Hungary, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Turkey, Romania, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Tatars in Crimea; the Cumans in Dobrudja were assimilated into Bulgarian and Romanian people. Placenames such as Kumanovo in Macedonia, Kumanichevo (now Lithia) in Greece, Comanesti in Romania, Kuman in Xinjiang, towns named Polovtsy in Russia and Belarus, the village of Kumane in Serbia, Kuman in Azerbaijan, and others are references to the Cumans.